Convert basement Toilet to Drain?

I was directed to this forum to ask my question... hopefully you guys can help me...

I just baught a house and there is a very nice room in the basement with a fireplace and everything! I plan on building a bar with a draft system... but rather than have a drip tray (they cost upwards of $75) I got a sink. Same price, better utility. The problem is: Where to drain it

Directly on the other side of the wall from the sink is a toilet. It's mounted directly to the concrete floor and is about 2' from my furnace. Almost totally useless. I don't think the toilet is vented.

My question is:
A. Can I just pull the toilet, attach some sort of fitting to the drain and drain my sink into via a plain old P-trap?

B. My fiancee seems convinced the toilet might be usefull at some point. Is there a fitting that would raise the toilet and allow me to run PVC under it to drain the sink into? I would obviously have to create a subfloor to raise the toilet. If this is possible would it cause problems with the sink when you flushed? Sewer gas in my bar would suck.

IMHO, you're better off 'pulling' the toilet now, draining yr sink into the drain (w proper ptrap and vent) and then relocating the toilet to a preferable place flush (no pun intended) with the ground.

If you do as yr wife says, you'll have a badly located toilet at a crappy (no pun intended) height. It'll look like a hack job.

every toilet has a P trap inside it. Thus, a toilet drain has no P trap since you can't have two P traps in series. Your drain in your floor is made for a toilet. It has no P trap. It cannot serve as a floor drain alone, since it has no P trap.

You have two options if you remove the toilet. Either you attach plumbing to it so that a sink drains into it, with a sink P trap between the sink and the current drain. Or, you break open the concrete and add a P trap to the drain so that it now is a standalone floor drain.

More complicated options are available too...

First things first. Do you have a floor plan, or idea of where you want things to be? I find it hard to believe that someone is not sure whether or not he wants to keep a toilet or not. Either you have the space or not. Either your planned space layout makes sense or not.

To pull a toilet does not require breaking concrete. You unscrew bolts and slide (rotate) it off. It's easy and fast.

david

p.s. After you figure out what you want to do... then venting is the next big question. Where are your closest vents?
p.p.s. no a floor drain doesn't need a vent. A sink may not require anything more than a little AAV vent, so don't let venting constraints decide for you what you want to do with your space.

What is this AAV? Does it stand for "open Air vent"? Can you link me a picture?
Also, how do I tie into the toilet drain? I saw an adapter at ******* (like home depot) that looked like it would convert from the toilet fitting to 3" PVC. If I use something like this, how do I seal it? The wax toilet fitting or somethign eles?

I'm still trying to figure out my layout... it's going to be highly dependent on how I configure this drain.

Here's a rough scetch of my basement... directly behind the toilet are the cold-air return vents. I was planning on moving the door from the room with the fireplace and moving that wall back a few feet... that would be the bar. There is another drain right in fron of the toilet... but I can't run anything to it without blocking off a door. My furnace is HUGE and from the 1960s... but I dont plan on replacing it for about another year.

AAV=air admittance valve; Studor is one brand, and they are often called that sort of like Kleenex for a tissue or Xerox for a copy. I sort of thing if you are going to have a bar...a toilet would be nice, but it needs a sink!

The wall directly behind the toilet is a cold-air return vent. The wall to the left is only partially finished. To be therough I just pulled the vents on the cold air return and there are no pipes in there. So, unless the vent runs through the floor somehow, I just dont see how it could be vented.

There is a vent in the Garage that leads to the roof. Those drains are for the 2 bathrooms. There is a vent on the roof above the kitchen, i believe this goes down the wall on the main floor. IF the toilet is vented I'd think it would use this vent... but I dont think it does.

It's sounding like keeping the toilet would take more remodeling than I'm wanting to invest in... lol

it is not sounding like that. You have to know what you have first, before you can plan around it. That is the message.

A single fixture on a single arm could have been installed unvented if the pipe covers a short distance.

But you must find out what you have first. First, tell us where the plumbing is above the basement. Where is the vent in the roof, and in the upper floor(s)? Then, probe into the walls in the basement.

it is not sounding like that. You have to know what you have first, before you can plan around it. That is the message.

A single fixture on a single arm could have been installed unvented if the pipe covers a short distance.

But you must find out what you have first. First, tell us where the plumbing is above the basement. Where is the vent in the roof, and in the upper floor(s)? Then, probe into the walls in the basement.

David

Click to expand...

The floor directly above the toilet is the kitchen. There is a vent directly above that on the roof. I believe this vent is for the kitchen-sink drain.
The walls around the toilet are unfinished enough that I am confident there is no venting in them. The kitchen sink drain leads to the drain in front of the toilet.

The toilet is only about 4 feet from that drain. So, is that close enough that the toilet is using this drain? I could pull the toilet and look to see which way the drain goes. If the toilet is vented, should I see the drain going 1 way and the vent going another?

The toilet vent is probably beyond the elbow either upstream or downstream. You won't be able to see it by lifting the toilet. The vent has to go UP at some point within a few feet of the toilet. If yr furnace room is unfinished, then if the tlet is vented, you'd see it running along a wall nearby. It is possible that the kitchen drain is serving as the toilet vent.